The following is a statement from Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress:

“For once, the Senate prioritized the American people over the profits of David Sacks, Mark Zuckerberg and other Big Tech billionaires desperate to unleash predatory, half-baked AI on us without any safeguards. It’s hard to believe that we were on the precipice of letting Big Tech wipe out all state and local AI laws for an entire decade, but common sense prevailed. We thank all the senators who voted to kill the noxious ban on protections against AI. We also urge all House members to follow the Senate’s lead and ensure the AI moratorium stays out of the bill.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Prime Minister Hun Manet offered his thanks during an official visit to Phnom Penh by Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra marking the 75th anniversary of modeern diplomatic ties, which began in 1950.

Manet and Paetongtarn signed cooperation agreements on labor and workforce skill development, road maintenance, cross-border bridges and transnational pollution control.

The relationship between the two neighbors is sometimes turbulent. They have had occasional violent clashes over territorial disputes. But there’s been an increasingly pliant attitude between them when it comes toward treatment of political opposition figures who shelter on each other’s soil.

(AFP)

“I would like to thank Thailand for its core policy for not allowing any individuals to use Thai territory to interfere with the internal affairs and activities which created dangerous situations for Cambodia. The Cambodian government will practice the same policy,” Manet told a joint news conference.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called out that kind of cooperation in blunter terms. It accused the two governments of engaging in a “swap mart” or reciprocal arrangements targeting dissidents and opposition figures.

It said “both governments have facilitated assaults, abductions, enforced disappearances, and the forced return of people to their home countries where their lives or freedom are at risk”.

“Prime Minister Paetongtarn should press her Cambodian counterparts to end transnational abuses that discredit both countries globally and to put their relationship on a rights-respecting footing instead,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, was quoted as saying.

Since a 2014 military coup in Thailand by the then-army chief against an elected government, Bangkok has been accused of cooperating with authoritarian governments in neighboring countries in the detention and repatriation of dissidents, particularly from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The rights group said that Thai authorities have frequently used immigration charges to justify the unlawful deportation of Cambodian dissidents and activists without any due process guarantees, including those recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

There’s also been incidents in which Thai nationals have been targeted in neighboring countries. A prominent pro-democracy activist, Wanchalearm Satsaksit, was kidnapped by armed men in Phnom Penh in June 2020 and hasn’t been seen since.

Human Rights Watch also highlighted that Cambodian authorities have failed to arrest suspects responsible for killing Lim Kimya, a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in Bangkok on Jan. 7, 2025. The Bangkok Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two Cambodian nationals who are both connected to high-ranking Cambodian government officials and remain at large.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA and RFA Khmer.

In real life, this resort is the Four Seasons Koh Samui, and thanks to both its visual appeal and the popularity of the show, Thailand is anticipating a major tourism boost.

The country has experienced the power of appearing on screens across the globe before. At the dawn of the new millennium, the film The Beach premiered, starring Leonardo DiCaprio at his post-Titanic peak as well as the setting itself — the otherworldly Maya Bay, a nearly enclosed slice of the Andaman Sea on the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh, inside a national park. It was a popular snorkeling spot before The Beach, but the film supercharged interest and fans began flocking to Maya Bay, with upwards of 5,000 tourists and 200 boats overwhelming the small beach and its marine ecosystem every day. 

The country went along with it, caught in the all-too-common trap of depending on revenue from the very tourism that jeopardizes its infrastructure and environment. Meanwhile, trash wrecked the beach, boat anchors and pollution killed the reef, and wildlife disappeared. 

Now, 25 years later almost to the day after The Beach came along, Thailand has its next Hollywood-induced frenzy on its hands, and it’s hoping to be better prepared this time around.

While The Beach portrayed paradise-seekers rejecting the traditional markers of vacation luxury by starting their own commune on a secret beach, White Lotus showcases those very markers, then lampoons them. Each season ushers in a new set of wealthy malcontents and the locals who make their holidays run smoothly. Both productions share a sense of paradise gone wrong. They in fact skewer the very notion of the beach as paradise, which would seem to make them awkward conduits for selling a location. Yet, a marketing budget can’t buy the kind of promotion they’ve provided. 

“Appearing in White Lotus Season 3 allows us to reach a truly global audience,” said Chompu Marusachot, the New York director of the Tourist Authority of Thailand. “We are continuously striving to enhance and expand our tourism efforts and infrastructure to welcome even more visitors in the future.” 

But as Maya Bay showed, more tourists can mean more problems. In 2018, the Thai government had finally seen enough and shut the place down until further notice. Maya Bay reopened in 2022 with a strict system in place to minimize future damage. Boats are no longer allowed to enter the bay, docking instead at a pier elsewhere on the island. The new maximum of 4,125 daily visitors, arriving in designated time slots, walk along a new boardwalk to reach the bay, where they can no longer swim or bring non-reef-safe sunscreen. Maya Bay continues to close to visitors for two months every year for rehabilitation. 

Koh Samui, by contrast, has been home to a bustling tourism industry long before White Lotus. Today it has 630 hotels and resorts. One of them, the Four Seasons, opened in 2007 and occupies a relatively serene stretch of coastline compared to other parts of the island, whose 3.5 million annual visitors join a local population of 70,000. 

Both locations are dealing with the challenges of climate change. Last year, Thailand suffered record high sea temperatures, which led to a mass coral bleaching event and the death of seagrass, which in turn led to a mass die-off of dugongs and other ocean life. Storms and floods are also getting more destructive. In 2024, Thailand experienced its worst flooding in decades, affecting more than half a million households.

Koh Samui is a case study in how tourism can add to those problems. “Since tourism rapidly developed without proper infrastructure planning and environmental management, Samui is facing critical problems in terms of waste management and water resources,” said Kannapa Pongponrat, a professor at Thailand’s Thammasat University.  

The pipeline bringing water from the mainline to Koh Samui has proved insufficient as tourism has grown, leading to water shortages on the island. Sediment from construction of resorts and hotels has damaged coral reefs and other ocean life. And trash often accumulates at the edges of roads and in the ocean itself. Thailand is one of the world’s biggest contributors to marine plastic pollution, with tourism having been identified as the primary source of the problem in the Gulf of Thailand, where Koh Samui is located.      

The Thai government nevertheless worked hard to woo creator Mike White’s juggernaut of a show, offering generous tax breaks and other incentives that ultimately shaved as much as $4.4 million from production costs for White Lotus’ third season. The payoff? A near guarantee of more tourism revenue. After Season 2 aired in 2022, the Four Seasons’ San Domenico Palace, Taormina, which stood in for the White Lotus resort, sold out for all of 2023, while travel interest for Sicily spiked. The Four Seasons Maui, the setting for Season 1, saw a 425 percent increase in traffic to its website after the show aired. A representative for the Four Seasons on Koh Samui said that since being announced as the “White Lotus” for Season 3, the hotel has already experienced a surge in searches and bookings.

As the country seeks to increase tourism, plans are underway to begin construction on a cruise ship terminal for Koh Samui in 2029. An airport expansion is set to start this year. New hotel development continues apace. A second waterline from the mainland is being built.

At the same time, the government has taken steps to mitigate environmental impacts over the past decade or so. The 2015 Marine and Coastal Resources Management Act has been harnessed to ban harmful activities such as the discharge of wastewater into the ocean and “sea walking,” where tourists stroll the ocean floor hooked up to oxygen-fed helmets. The country’s Roadmap on Plastic Waste Management aims to reduce plastic use and increase recycling practices. All the way back in 2014, the government launched the “Save Water, Save Samui” campaign to encourage sustainable water use on the island. 

According to experts, though, these efforts are sometimes toothless. “The Thai government has laws and regulations,” said Suchana Apple Chavanich, professor of oceanography at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, “but in this case they need to make sure that those laws and regulations will be followed.” The plastic waste roadmap, for example, does not include an enforcement mechanism, likely limiting its effectiveness. Pongponrat pointed to unchecked illegal construction on Koh Samui, often with insufficient water drainage, which exacerbates flooding problems.

Chavanich also noted that many hotels and other tourist businesses on Koh Samui have been working independently to make Koh Samui greener over the past decade or so, but these efforts in turn could use more government support. “This has to be a collaboration between [the Thai] government, local government, public and private sectors,” she said. 

For its part, the Four Seasons said it has embarked on a number of initiatives. It eliminated all single-use plastic in 2019, treats its graywater on property, and partnered with Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources on a reef conservation project that has so far reintroduced 16,000 coral pieces to the reef offshore from the resort. The resort said it is developing additional sustainability measures in light of the expected White Lotus effect, but was unable to provide detail at this time as plans are still being approved. 

Experts agreed that more action will be necessary to counterbalance the damage from overtourism on Koh Samui. The crowds are coming, proving that even as climate change and rising seas threaten the entire model of the beach vacation, its cultural cachet endures. Three seasons in, White Lotus is featuring nature prominently, but always with ominous overtones — the fruit of a pong pong tree in one villa turns out to be toxic, a large monitor lizard spooks one of the guests. It’s almost as if the island is trying to send a message. A quarter century after The Beach, whether that message will be received remains an open question.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Thanks to HBO, everyone wants a White Lotus getaway. Can Thailand handle it? on Feb 19, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Sarah Stodola.

As Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was meeting Xi in Beijing, a Myanmar militia allied with the junta released 61 trafficked foreigners from one of Myanmar’s major scam zones and handed them to Thai authorities over the border.

Online fraud has mushroomed in parts of Southeast Asia over recent years, often relying on workers lured by false job advertisements and forced to contact people online or by phone to trick them into putting money into fake investments.

Would-be investors have been cheated out of billions of dollars, with many perpetrators and victims believed to be from China, research groups say.

Reports about the centers have hit the headlines in recent weeks after a Chinese actor was rescued from eastern Myanmar, alarming the public across Asia and leading to a rash of tour group cancellations to Thailand and raising the prospect of economic damage.

Thai officials have also cited national security for their decision to cut electricity and internet to the enclaves in Myanmar, though they have not elaborated.

Xi thanked the visiting Thai leader for her government’s action, China’s CCTV state broadcaster reported.

“China appreciates the strong measures taken by Thailand to combat online gambling and phone and online scams”, CCTV cited Xi as saying.

“The two sides must continue to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and judicial cooperation” to “protect people’s lives and property,” Xi said.

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Militia promises action

With the pressure growing, the Myanmar militia group that has overseen and profited from the fraud operations in the Myawaddy region, the Border Guard Force, or BGF, sent 61 foreign workers to Thailand on Thursday and vowed to wipe out the illegal businesses.

BGF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Naing Maung Zaw said the 61 foreigners, including some from China, were sent over a bridge across a border river from Myawaddy to the Thai town of Mae Sot.

A Thai group that helps victims of human trafficking said 39 of those released were from China, 13 from India, five from Indonesia and one from Malaysia, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

Media photographs showed Thai officials speaking to the 61, who included some women, as they sat on rows of plastic chairs. Many of them wore blue surgical masks.

Last month, BGF leaders said they had agreed with operators of the scam centers to stop forced labor and fraud, and Naing Maung Zaw repeated a promise to clean up his zone.

“At some time, we will completely destroy this scamming business. That’s what we’re working on now,” he told Radio Free Asia, adding that the utility cuts had hurt ordinary people more than the scamming gangs.

Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai greeted the 61 as they crossed into Thailand.

“Please feel free to give us information and cooperation which will be useful for eradicating this,” Phumtham told them.

“Please inform everyone about the conditions there,” he said before the 61 were taken to an immigration facility for paperwork.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

Well that was blessedly quick. Less than a week after NBC said it would pay fascist bootlicker and election liar Ronna McDaniel to bootlick and lie on air - and a day after its employees loudly protested the move - NBC, citing their "legitimate concerns," said oops never mind and dropped McDaniel. Along with her colleagues, Rachel Maddow had cogently argued against giving a platform to a low-life hack who is "part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government."

The righteous revolt by journalists at NBC and MSNBC was swift after the network announced McDaniel's $300,000 hire Friday, two weeks after she was forced out as RNC chair to make room for Trump's even more servile daughter-in-law Lara Trump. At the time, NBC said it wanted to include news contributors representing a "diverse set of viewpoints and experiences," a dumpster-fire of an explanation blasted by enraged reporters who noted that McDaniel aiding and abetting a propaganda campaign intended to overthrow or at least undermine electoral democracy - including telling GOP canvassers in Michigan to not certify 2020 election results - is so far above and beyond a "diverse viewpoint" that Trump and multiple co-conspirators have been criminally indicted for it.

Reporters railed through Monday against McDaniel poisoning what Nicolle Wallace called "our sacred airwaves," from Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski decrying someone "who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier" to late-night Lawrence O’Donnell advising his network, "Don’t hire anyone close to the crimes." Jen Psaki rejected right-wing comparisons with her own move from politics to reporting. "That kind of experience (only) has value if it's paired with honesty and good faith," she said, especially in this fraught moment. "Our democracy is in danger because of the lies that people like Ronna McDaniel have pushed on this country...This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. This isn't about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies."

Maddow joins colleagues in objecting to McDaniel for legitimizing Trump, attacking democracy www.youtube.com

Rachel Maddow devoted most of her time on air to joining the backlash, expressing solidarity with her colleagues' "loud and principled objections" to giving a voice to the willing accomplice of an aspiring strongman. En route, she highlighted our “long history of forgettable men" intent on convincing the country we need a "new system of government." “We have had a lot of these guys, but our generation’s version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them," she said. "And why is that? (Trump) would have been as forgotten as the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the Republican Party, and had the leader of that party (decide) she would not just abide him, she would help. She would help with the worst of it."

Which was, in essence, "priming your people" not to accept the next election results. "In the news business, yes, we are covering an election," she said. "We’re also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of a democracy to end democracy. The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims (that) America’s election results aren’t real, and they shouldn’t be respected.” The "inexplicable" hire of McDaniel to report on election news, she suggested, was akin to hiring a mobster at a D.A.'s office or a pickpocket as a TSA airport screener. She ended with a civil, simple plea to the network: "I hope they will reverse their decision."

And so they did. Tuesday evening, Puck News reported NBC had dropped McDaniel in her second, well-deserved job humiliation - ever classy, even Trump mocked her - in two weeks. NBC said chairman Cesar Conde sent staff an email reversing the hire and apologizing to those "who felt we let them down." McDaniel is reportedly, unsurprisingly "exploring her legal options." Still, argues historian Timothy Snyder, a fat check - she may get paid in full, giving her $500 a second for one interview - will be a small price to pay. In what is "not a normal political situation where you can give a little and get a little," he says, appeasement is a lousy option: "If you practise giving things away, if you say, 'Ok, we're gonna practice appeasing a dictator so when the dictator comes we'll be better at it' - is that what you should be doing?"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape made his historic address to the Australian Federal Parliament in Canberra today.

Following Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s welcome address, Marape highlighted with gratitude the historical ties between the two nations and made special reference to the continuous support given to PNG by Australia since independence in 1975.

“We thank Australia for the profound work that has gone into the setting up of key institutions that remain the anchor of this free vibrant democracy of PNG,” said Marape.

• READ MORE: Other PNG reports

Speaking during his address to senators and members of the Australian federal Parliament, Marape described the relationship between the two countries as being “joined to the hips” and “locked into earth’s crust together”, referring to the Indo-Australian tectonic plate.

He emphasised the efforts of Australia as being a “huge pillar of support” in terms of infrastructural development for Papua New Guinea.

Marape also made reference to former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam and Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare as the “forefathers who made independence possible” and described Australia as being a big brother or sister that had nurtured PNG into adulthood.

Post-Courier: ‘My sons will come’

In an editorial today, the Post-Courier said:

Today’s a historic day in PNG Australia relationships.

On this day, January 8, 2024, in Canberra, a son of Kondom Agaundo, the legendary Papua New Guinean warrior chief, will address the Australian Federal Parliament.

This simple act will fulfill the prophecy of Chief Kondom of Wandi, Chimbu province. His prophecy titled “my sons will come” has become a rallying call for Papua New Guineans to set forth and explore the world of globalism in education, business, sports, foreign policy, tourism and politics.

It was in Canberra that Kondom, a member of the PNG Legislative Council, felt humiliated when he tried to address an Australian audience. His lack of English proficiency irritated the audience who responded with laughter.

Chief Kondom, the son of a powerful warrior chief, felt slighted.

He thought maybe, if not for his poor English, then maybe it was the insinuation of his name.

While he felt insulted, he was a warrior and would not show any weakness. He held fast to his belief that payment for an offence now would be fulfilled later.

He was determined to prove his leadership skills. He was determined to tell the white “mastas” that their time in Papua and New Guinea would end.

He responded with the famous lines: “In my village, I am a chief among my people but today, I stand in front of you like a child and when I try to speak in your language, you laugh at my words.

“But tomorrow, my son will come and he will talk to you in your language, this time you will not laugh at him.”

And that the sons and daughters of Chief Kondom, well educated, very confident, fluent and sophisticated, cultured, tasteful, elegant and vibrant have descended on Australia in the last 50 years.

Former politicians and knights Sir Yano Belo and Sir Nambuka Mara are in Canberra with Prim Minister Marape.

It was the wisdom of people like Chief Kondom, Sir Yano, Sir Nambuka, Sir Peter Lus and many other political warriors that inspired Chief Sir Michael Somare to demand political independence from Australia.

The memory of Chief Kondom lives on in Chimbu and across the country. His legacy is written on buildings and schools.

In 1965, Kondom Agaundo was the Member for Highlands region. He also became a kiap, the first local to embrace Western civilisation.

He was the first president of Waiye Rural LLG 1959 and the first Chimbu man to own and ride horses.

He is remembered as the man who fostered coffee in the Central highlands. Sadly, chief Kondom died in a car crash at Daulo Pass in August 1966.

It is said that the funeral and burial ceremony lasted weeks and over 100 pigs were slaughtered for the man who reminded the Australians his sons would come.

Today, Prime Minister completes the evolution of the legend of Chief Kondom Agaundo, under the watchful gaze of two of Chief Kondom’s surviving peers.

Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

In the 1990s, Oregon’s powerful timber industry used its influence to win a series of tax cuts that have cost local governments a cumulative $3 billion. Once-vibrant communities were left struggling to pay for basic services without the taxes that once came from logging the valuable forests that surround them.

Now the industry is in line for another tax break, thanks to a key ally.

With the costs of fighting Oregon’s wildfires climbing, the timber industry worked with policymakers behind closed doors to develop legislation that would reduce what industrial forest owners pay for protecting their cash crop from flames. Timber lobbyists not only helped write the bill, they even helped write a top lawmaker’s talking points.

When the Oregon Legislature opens a monthlong session Monday, lawmakers in the nation’s top lumber-producing state will weigh a bill proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, a Portland Democrat running for state treasurer. Steiner, one of the state’s top budget writers, wants taxpayers to pay $7 million more annually for fighting fires so timber and ranching interests can pay less.

Her rationale: fairness. She says wildfires affect everyone, not just timberland and ranchland owners. Steiner told lawmakers at a Jan. 10 hearing that “we wanted to be sure that we came up with a solution that reflected the fact that this is a statewide problem.”

Meanwhile, a competing effort would do the opposite: raise taxes on timber. Democratic Sen. Jeff Golden’s bill would restore some of the income lost when lawmakers slashed taxes on the industry in the 1990s, which sapped money for libraries, prosecutors and sheriff’s patrols in communities where trees are harvested.

Steiner said she expected Golden’s plan to get “a robust public hearing,” but she also voiced concerns.

Oregon is one of a handful of states that place no limit on how much corporations or anyone else can give to political campaigns, and the timber industry has for years donated more to lawmakers in the state than anywhere else in the nation, a 2021 analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

Timber companies also harvest more trees and pay less in taxes in Oregon than in neighboring Washington state, state analyses have shown.

Records show that timber companies and their trade groups have given Steiner $24,000 since 2020, most recently a $1,000 December donation from Weyerhaeuser, a major forestland owner. Golden’s financial disclosures list only one check from a timber company in his career, and the records show he gave the $500 to a nonprofit focused on restoring forests.

Steiner told ProPublica that her bill — cosponsored by one other Democrat and two Republicans — had nothing to do with campaign contributions and that Oregon’s history of cutting timber taxes is “only partially relevant to this particular conversation.”

“You can make an argument that we’re letting them off easy, or that we’re giving them the big tax break,” Steiner said. “And I’m gonna say, I don’t know, you may be right. It’s a bigger conversation.”

A 2020 investigation by ProPublica, Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive revealed how the timber industry wielded its influence to win the 1990s tax cuts even as timber harvests soared and local jobs disappeared with dramatic advances in automation.

Steiner said she hadn’t read the investigation. Golden has repeatedly cited the news organizations’ findings as essential reading.

The Wall Street real estate trusts and investment funds that now control much of Oregon’s private timberland “seem to be taking so much natural wealth out of Oregon forests,” Golden said, “without the corresponding benefit to communities and workers that traditional Oregon-based timber companies offer.”

Golden and seven Democratic cosponsors want a measure added to the November ballot that would raise taxes on timber companies by between $75 million and $110 million a year and partially restore what counties once received. Some of the new money would go to wildfire protection and protecting drinking water supplies that are threatened by logging.

He would also eliminate the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, a tax-funded agency that the news organizations found operated for years as a de facto lobbying arm of the industry. (The institute did not respond to a request for comment about the legislation.)

Other lawmakers have tried to tackle these issues before and failed.

State Rep. Paul Holvey, a Eugene Democrat, has been introducing bills to restore logging taxes for a decade. “Getting the Legislature to stand up and understand this issue and recognize the impact it’s having on our communities, our budgets and just across the board,” Holvey said, “it’s always been a challenge.”

During the 2021 legislative session, lawmakers set out to increase taxes on logging but ended up temporarily cutting them instead.

In heavily forested Polk County, west of Salem, cuts to Oregon’s tax on the value of timber took away more than $100 million in revenue over the years, the news organizations found.

Jeremy Gordon, one of three Polk County commissioners, said his county has to ask voters to approve new levies every five years just to afford basic public services like 24/7 sheriff’s patrols, jail staff and district attorneys. Golden’s proposed tax would allow the county to drastically reduce what taxpayers are asked to spend.

“That would be a big chunk of our public safety levy,” Gordon said. “I mean, that would be significant.”

On the other hand, Gordon is not enthusiastic about Steiner’s proposal because it pushes more firefighting costs — which include the cost of protecting the industry’s trees — onto taxpayers.

The head of a tax watchdog group also said she was taken aback by what Steiner put forward. “I think that Sen. Steiner was rolled by the industry,” said Jody Wiser, president of Tax Fairness Oregon.

“It absolutely makes no sense that legislators would go along with it,” Wiser said. The timber industry has “massive tax breaks already. They absolutely should not be getting additional tax breaks.”

The bill contains a complex variety of tax changes. But on the whole, it reduces costs for big timber and ranchland owners and raises them for Oregon income tax payers and people who own homes in the woods, among others. If the legislation passes, the state’s general fund alone would take a $7 million hit.

Weyerhaeuser, a publicly traded $24 billion real estate investment trust with 1.4 million acres of forestland in Oregon, participated in a private working group that agreed on Steiner’s proposal.

Betsy Earls, a Weyerhaeuser lobbyist, helped craft a two-page “talker” for Steiner that described how the bill’s cost shifts would create a system that is “stable and equitable.” Earls’ role in crafting the talking points was first reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Kyle Williams, a lobbyist for the Oregon Forest & Industries Council, an industry group whose funders include Weyerhaeuser, sent the talking points to Steiner on Nov. 28, according to an email that Steiner’s office provided. Weyerhaeuser donated $1,000 to Steiner’s campaign less than three weeks later.

“We support candidates in our operating areas across the country, and across the political spectrum,” a Weyerhaeuser spokesperson said.

Steiner said the industry’s donations had no effect on her position.

“I have a reputation as somebody who does her homework, works really hard to take a balanced approach, and that’s why entities across the political spectrum are so comfortable contributing to my campaign,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Oregon Forest & Industries Council said the trade group had not yet seen Golden’s bill and had no comment.

Golden and Steiner are refining the details of their bills as lawmakers prepare for their monthlong session. But Golden wants to see his plan on the ballot in a presidential election year, when turnout is typically higher.

Staff advisers to Gov. Tina Kotek also worked on plans for promoting Steiner’s bill, emails provided by Steiner show. A “communications strategy” document called for the governor’s staff to brief Kotek and get her support.

A spokesperson for the governor, Elisabeth Shepard, said Kotek’s staff only provided “technical support” to the group working on Steiner’s bill. Shepard declined to comment on the apparent contradiction.

Asked whether the governor supported Steiner’s proposal or Golden’s, Shepard said the governor “looks forward to reviewing any legislation on this matter that makes it to her desk.”

Tony Schick of Oregon Public Broadcasting contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Rob Davis.

Image by Li-An Lim.

It’s not true that humanity is committing suicide, as exemplified by the COP28 farce of a climate summit. The world’s industrialists and financiers are committing humanity to ecocide. More than ever, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Death by capitalism. That phrase has a certain catchy feeling to it. But it’s no joke, is it? No, no joke at all.

The post So Long, and Thanks for All the Hamburgers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Pete Dolack.

University of the South Pacific staff who once stood by vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia are now up in arms about his role in a decision by pro-chancellor Dr Hilda Heine to disallow a staff paper to be placed on the agenda of the 96th USP Council meeting being held today.

A joint press statement by the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the University of the South Pacific Staff Union (USPSU) said the blocked paper was in relation to “many unresolved issues faced by the staff over the period 2021 to May 2023”, which included pay and other matters.

The unions said staff from across the region met on November 22 and “are aggrieved and angry at the refusal of the PC (pro-chancellor) and VCP to allow their voice to be heard at council”.

• READ MORE: USP saga and other reports

“This is the same VCP that  the staff stood for in his hour of greatest need,” the unions said.

“The same staff who took risks to ensure that he was given worker justice and the opportunity to prove his worthiness of the VCP position.

“That he was a likely party to a decision to disallow the Staff paper is indicative of VCP’s leadership style which has become very clear to staff.”

The unions said USP management refuse to discuss or negotiate a salary adjustment for 2019-2023 and the final course of action was to bring the matter to the council for resolution in preference to industrial action.

What the VC had to say
In response to queries from The Fiji Times, Professor Ahluwalia sent a message he had issued to USP staff.

In it, he thanked them for joining him in a staff discussion which had a “record number of staff who attended with a high level of engagement.

“Whilst we have made considerable progresses, some issues remain outstanding,” the VC said.

He said USP now had a budget that would be presented to the council for approval today.

“Despite the alarming situation concerning declining student numbers, we have managed to ensure no redundancies, albeit, we will only be able to fill 30 per cent of our vacancies next year.”

Professor Ahluwalia said in terms of salary adjustments, the university had “made a great deal of progress, with two salary increases in October 2022 and January 2023 and an increment/bonus for all staff in the middle of the year (2023), and provisions have been made for another salary increase next year subject to council approving our 2024 budget.”

Questions sent to pro-vice chancellor Dr Hilda Heine yesterday remained unanswered.

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Photo by Bekky Bekks

When I think of Thanksgiving, I seldom think of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag people dining together (likely sans turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie) in Massachusetts in 1621.

Rather, my thoughts wander to Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation inviting his fellow citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

What was Lincoln thankful for? “Fruitful fields and healthful skies” …  and Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

“In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.”

Wartime Thanksgiving holidays are the rule, not the exception. As Christian Oord reports at War History Online, the United States has enjoyed a whopping 17 years of peace in its 247 years of existence. It’s been at war 93% of the time since 1776 (that article was written in 2019, but nothing’s changed in a big way since then).

America’s wars are seldom formally declared. Nor does the US regime always go whole hog — in many cases, it fights through proxies, arming, funding, and looming threateningly behind client states (as in Ukraine’s war with Russia and Israel’s war with the Palestinian Arabs).

I’m not thankful for America’s wars.

I suppose I SHOULD be thankful that it’s been more than two decades since those wars last came closer to my home in the form of major “blowback,” but I find it hard to dredge up much gratitude.

The deaths, injuries, and dispossessions caused partially or wholly by US foreign military adventurism — the toll comes to millions even if we write off everything prior to 9/11 — constitute a huge karmic debt, put on all our tabs in a perpetual dine-and-dash by the American political class.

We may not be noticeably paying that bill down now, but we’ll beyond doubt pay eventually, with interest … at which point the warmongers who brought the next terrible thing down on our heads will whine bitterly, from their secure bunkers in undisclosed locations, that the debt collectors “hate us for our freedom” and that the only solution is yet another round of war.

Is all that a little dark for a Thanksgiving column? Yeah, I guess so. But it’s where my thoughts are turning this week, which also marks 60 years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, likely by elements of the very national security state that keeps the US constantly at war and its people constantly in danger.

I am, of course, thankful for my family, my friends, my readers, etc. And as the American holiday season kicks off, my wish for all of you is that ever-elusive goal: An America, and a world, at peace. Happy Thanksgiving.

The post War: Thanks But No Thanks appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

The amendment adds that the state of Ohio "shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: an individual's voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right," but "abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability," unless a doctor determines it is necessary to protect the patient's life or heath.

The lawsuit alleges that "the prescribed ballot language—drafted and introduced by respondent Secretary of State Frank LaRose and approved by respondent the Ohio Ballot Board in a 3-to-2 vote—fails to comport with the Ballot Board's duty to provide ballot language that impartially, accurately, and completely describes the amendment's effects. Instead, it is a naked attempt to prejudice voters against the amendment."

"The summary that was adopted by the Ballot Board is intentionally misleading and fails to meet the standards required by Ohio law."

The complaint details four examples of "deceptive" language, accusing the board of "obscuring much of the amendment's scope" by only mentioning abortion and pushing "an objective falsehood" by saying that the amendment would restrict "the citizens of the state of Ohio"—rather than the state—from interfering with Ohioans' exercise of their right to make reproductive decisions.

"Compounding these shortcomings is the fact that the Ballot Board was asked to put the clear, simple 194-word text of the amendment itself on the ballot, so that voters could see exactly what they were being asked to approve," the suit notes. "But the Ballot Board refused, instead adopting a wholesale rewrite."

"Indeed, the adopted language is longer (by word count) than the amendment it purports to condense," the complaint continues. "All these new and extra words serve one purpose—to distort the actual text and meaning of the amendment."

The board's summary also changes the amendment's inclusive "pregnant patient" language to "pregnant woman" and uses "unborn child" rather than medically accurate terms such as "embryo" and "fetus."

Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to direct the board to either use the full text of the amendment as the ballot language or reconvene "to prescribe lawful ballot language."

The coalition spokesperson's, Lauren Blauvelt, stressed in a statement Monday that "Issue 1 was clearly written to protect Ohioans' right to make our own personal healthcare decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and abortion, free from government interference."

"The summary that was adopted by the Ballot Board is intentionally misleading and fails to meet the standards required by Ohio law," Blauvelt said. "Ohio voters deserve to see the full amendment language for Issue 1, which they can find at ReadTheAmendment.com."

"The Ballot Board's members adopted politicized, distorted language for the amendment, exploiting their authority in a last-ditch effort to deceive and confuse Ohio voters ahead of the November vote on reproductive freedom," she added. "Voting yes on Issue 1 will put Ohioans back in charge of our personal decisions, and stop the government from dictating what's best for our families."

Outrage over the board's summary has been growing since it was announced last week. Molly Meegan, chief legal officer and general counsel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said Tuesday that "the summary is another attempt to remove decisions about reproductive healthcare from Ohio residents, replace them with the judgment of partisan forces that do not reflect the will of the voters, and impose bureaucrats' personal ideology on the voters of Ohio."

"The language used to discuss abortion has a profound impact on how people form their opinions about reproductive healthcare, and the emotionally charged language that will now be presented to voters is neither clinically nor legally sound," she explained. "Opponents of abortion access have historically and intentionally used emotionally coercive language, even creating their own biased terminology, in order to sway people away from understanding the reality of abortion care."

Meegan added that" we strongly oppose the efforts of biased policymakers to manipulate people at the ballot box, and we urge voters to see through these attempts to influence their decisions and to advance protections for all the people whose lives would be benefited" by the amendment's passage.

The board's contested summary comes after another bid by Ohio's Republicans to block the amendment. In an August 8 special election approved by the Ohio Supreme Court's right-wing majority, voters rejected a proposal that would have raised the threshold to amend the state constitution via referendum from a simple majority to 60%.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a half-century of national abortion rights last year, there were six state ballot measures related to abortion. Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont approved amendments to affirm reproductive rights while voters in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana rejected proposals intended to restrict healthcare access.

Coalitions in Arizona and Nebraska have launched efforts to get pro-abortion rights measures on the ballot in 2024.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph Source: Images Money – CC BY 2.0

During the pandemic, poor people did not have to renew their Medicaid annually. Now that covid is supposedly over, that has changed. Unwinding, in normal parlance called ending, Medicaid continuous coverage began on April 1. That was after the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 terminated the Medicaid continuous enrollment provision on March 31. As a result, by the end of July, roughly four million indigent people lost their health care coverage. They’ve started rationing medicines or skipping them. And as the months pass, more people will lose access to a doctor and to prescriptions. Way to go, Washington! And way to go, Joe “I Would Veto Medicare for All” Biden. The transformation of the U.S. into a “shithole” nation just picked up the pace.

So why are all these people losing their medical coverage? And why does this happen when we already have 27.6 million people without health insurance? Well, it happens mostly, and most infuriatingly, for bureaucratic reasons, not because patients become ineligible. These cutoffs, according to the Washington Post July 28, are due to “renewal notices not arriving at the right addresses, beneficiaries not understanding the notices, or an assortment of state agencies’ mistakes and logjams.” And states quite obstinately keep people off Medicaid, even if they were dropped for one of these flimsy “procedural” reasons. Arkansas, the new Mecca for child labor, is one of the worst, while Texas, of course, followed by Florida, natch, has severed the most people, hundreds of thousands.

Arkansas GOP governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of the nation’s leading far-right fanatics when it comes to pitching her constituents back into deliquescent, early 19^th century social conditions, said in a May Wall Street Journal op-ed, “I’m proud Arkansas is leading the nation in getting back to normal.” Normal being booted off life-saving medical care. “It’s time to get [Arkansas residents] off the path of dependency.” The brave new world of astronomical premiums and high-priced medicines on Obamacare, or simply no care at all, awaits!

“Trevor Hawkins, an attorney with Legal Aid of Arkansas, said some people have been told their Medicaid cases were closed at their own request – when that was not true,” the Post reported. Also, children lose coverage when their parents do, even though they still qualify! But the state has a handy dandy excuse: Some people, according to the Arkansas human services department spokesman “have chosen not to return the renewal forms, aware that they are no longer eligible.”

This is probably hokum. But it is to be expected from a Republican party with a long history of hostility to Medicaid and an open wish to bury it. Remember, years ago when the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults at 138 percent of the poverty level, ten states refused the expansion. They are: Wisconsin, Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. North Carolina adopted but did not implement the expansion. Those are mostly red states, whose governments basically said they’d rather their poor residents skipped seeing a doctor than accept federal funds for a program they oppose ideologically and slam around enthusiastically as a political punching bag.

So the smart money is on these eleven states contributing inordinately to the U.S.’s dismal longevity and infant mortality stats. When even a nation like Cuba, impoverished by Washington’s illegal, 60-year blockade, beats the U.S. in these two categories, you know something stinks. That something is the lack of a decent public health system.

American private equity-owned, for-profit medicine is a disgrace. People die of cancer every day because they cannot afford chemo. The number of medically-caused bankruptcies shot through the roof decades ago and now is unrivalled anywhere else on the planet. Insulin, a simple, life-saving drug whose discoverer tried to make it cheap, costs so much that diabetics routinely purchase it in Canada. Thank God for other countries. If American patients couldn’t shop online abroad, they’d be dropping like flies. And they will be, if our malevolently creative pharmaceutical companies ever manage to block this avenue of rescue. Given how inventive they’ve been at perverting Medicare, it surely is only a matter of time before pharma finds a way to tighten that noose, too.

How badly has decaying capitalism destroyed our health? According to the KFF Health System Tracker, “The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries, while it far outspends its peers on health care.” Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind that in Germany, the U.K., Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Japan and Switzerland. To say nothing of U.S. life expectancy dipping behind China, Lebanon, the Czech Republic and Cuba.

In infant mortality, the U.S. does even worse. It ranked 33 out of 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in 2019 – before the pandemic. And we all know how abysmally the U.S. did during the covid years (which some might note are not over) – over 1.1 million dead, proportionally worse than any other country, rich or poor. That’s because our dysfunctional public health system and our corporate-owned government were uninterested in stopping the virus with any sustained, coherent medical strategy, while the few lockdowns we did have nearly sparked a far-right revolt.

That doesn’t even count the 16.3 million working age Americans who cope with long covid, their health compromised, and as for their longevity – who knows? They’ll probably join the statistics of the multitudes of Americans who die prematurely, while nincompoop right-wingers and our corporate overlords will no doubt rant against any public health moves to assist them, as part of a commie plot to steal our freedoms, since public health arrangements put, uh, health first. So there will be none. Because we are ruled by cruel, greedy people who also happen to be nitwits. If you doubt that assessment, just look at their conduct of our foreign policy.

So yes, in America, along with the freedom to freeze to death sleeping under an overpass in winter or the freedom to drop dead of heat stroke driving an un-air-conditioned UPS truck in summer for a living, the freedom to work 80 hours a week and still not afford an apartment or the freedom to skip meals because you can’s snag enough work for your food stamps, we also have the freedom to die of treatable diseases because we can’t pay. The few best efforts to alter that amoral calculus of our corporate rulers are Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and they remain all-season targets of far-right demagogues. And now with the pandemic supposedly over, as the few socially and morally responsible safeguards against it are removed, we will see again that unfailing measure of unfettered monopolistic capitalist success – an uptick in the death rate.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

Photograph Source: Images Money – CC BY 2.0

During the pandemic, poor people did not have to renew their Medicaid annually. Now that covid is supposedly over, that has changed. Unwinding, in normal parlance called ending, Medicaid continuous coverage began on April 1. That was after the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 terminated the Medicaid continuous enrollment provision on March 31. As a result, by the end of July, roughly four million indigent people lost their health care coverage. They’ve started rationing medicines or skipping them. And as the months pass, more people will lose access to a doctor and to prescriptions. Way to go, Washington! And way to go, Joe “I Would Veto Medicare for All” Biden. The transformation of the U.S. into a “shithole” nation just picked up the pace.

So why are all these people losing their medical coverage? And why does this happen when we already have 27.6 million people without health insurance? Well, it happens mostly, and most infuriatingly, for bureaucratic reasons, not because patients become ineligible. These cutoffs, according to the Washington Post July 28, are due to “renewal notices not arriving at the right addresses, beneficiaries not understanding the notices, or an assortment of state agencies’ mistakes and logjams.” And states quite obstinately keep people off Medicaid, even if they were dropped for one of these flimsy “procedural” reasons. Arkansas, the new Mecca for child labor, is one of the worst, while Texas, of course, followed by Florida, natch, has severed the most people, hundreds of thousands.

Arkansas GOP governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of the nation’s leading far-right fanatics when it comes to pitching her constituents back into deliquescent, early 19^th century social conditions, said in a May Wall Street Journal op-ed, “I’m proud Arkansas is leading the nation in getting back to normal.” Normal being booted off life-saving medical care. “It’s time to get [Arkansas residents] off the path of dependency.” The brave new world of astronomical premiums and high-priced medicines on Obamacare, or simply no care at all, awaits!

“Trevor Hawkins, an attorney with Legal Aid of Arkansas, said some people have been told their Medicaid cases were closed at their own request – when that was not true,” the Post reported. Also, children lose coverage when their parents do, even though they still qualify! But the state has a handy dandy excuse: Some people, according to the Arkansas human services department spokesman “have chosen not to return the renewal forms, aware that they are no longer eligible.”

This is probably hokum. But it is to be expected from a Republican party with a long history of hostility to Medicaid and an open wish to bury it. Remember, years ago when the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults at 138 percent of the poverty level, ten states refused the expansion. They are: Wisconsin, Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. North Carolina adopted but did not implement the expansion. Those are mostly red states, whose governments basically said they’d rather their poor residents skipped seeing a doctor than accept federal funds for a program they oppose ideologically and slam around enthusiastically as a political punching bag.

So the smart money is on these eleven states contributing inordinately to the U.S.’s dismal longevity and infant mortality stats. When even a nation like Cuba, impoverished by Washington’s illegal, 60-year blockade, beats the U.S. in these two categories, you know something stinks. That something is the lack of a decent public health system.

American private equity-owned, for-profit medicine is a disgrace. People die of cancer every day because they cannot afford chemo. The number of medically-caused bankruptcies shot through the roof decades ago and now is unrivalled anywhere else on the planet. Insulin, a simple, life-saving drug whose discoverer tried to make it cheap, costs so much that diabetics routinely purchase it in Canada. Thank God for other countries. If American patients couldn’t shop online abroad, they’d be dropping like flies. And they will be, if our malevolently creative pharmaceutical companies ever manage to block this avenue of rescue. Given how inventive they’ve been at perverting Medicare, it surely is only a matter of time before pharma finds a way to tighten that noose, too.

How badly has decaying capitalism destroyed our health? According to the KFF Health System Tracker, “The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries, while it far outspends its peers on health care.” Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind that in Germany, the U.K., Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Japan and Switzerland. To say nothing of U.S. life expectancy dipping behind China, Lebanon, the Czech Republic and Cuba.

In infant mortality, the U.S. does even worse. It ranked 33 out of 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in 2019 – before the pandemic. And we all know how abysmally the U.S. did during the covid years (which some might note are not over) – over 1.1 million dead, proportionally worse than any other country, rich or poor. That’s because our dysfunctional public health system and our corporate-owned government were uninterested in stopping the virus with any sustained, coherent medical strategy, while the few lockdowns we did have nearly sparked a far-right revolt.

That doesn’t even count the 16.3 million working age Americans who cope with long covid, their health compromised, and as for their longevity – who knows? They’ll probably join the statistics of the multitudes of Americans who die prematurely, while nincompoop right-wingers and our corporate overlords will no doubt rant against any public health moves to assist them, as part of a commie plot to steal our freedoms, since public health arrangements put, uh, health first. So there will be none. Because we are ruled by cruel, greedy people who also happen to be nitwits. If you doubt that assessment, just look at their conduct of our foreign policy.

So yes, in America, along with the freedom to freeze to death sleeping under an overpass in winter or the freedom to drop dead of heat stroke driving an un-air-conditioned UPS truck in summer for a living, the freedom to work 80 hours a week and still not afford an apartment or the freedom to skip meals because you can’s snag enough work for your food stamps, we also have the freedom to die of treatable diseases because we can’t pay. The few best efforts to alter that amoral calculus of our corporate rulers are Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and they remain all-season targets of far-right demagogues. And now with the pandemic supposedly over, as the few socially and morally responsible safeguards against it are removed, we will see again that unfailing measure of unfettered monopolistic capitalist success – an uptick in the death rate.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

Photograph Source: Images Money – CC BY 2.0

During the pandemic, poor people did not have to renew their Medicaid annually. Now that covid is supposedly over, that has changed. Unwinding, in normal parlance called ending, Medicaid continuous coverage began on April 1. That was after the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 terminated the Medicaid continuous enrollment provision on March 31. As a result, by the end of July, roughly four million indigent people lost their health care coverage. They’ve started rationing medicines or skipping them. And as the months pass, more people will lose access to a doctor and to prescriptions. Way to go, Washington! And way to go, Joe “I Would Veto Medicare for All” Biden. The transformation of the U.S. into a “shithole” nation just picked up the pace.

So why are all these people losing their medical coverage? And why does this happen when we already have 27.6 million people without health insurance? Well, it happens mostly, and most infuriatingly, for bureaucratic reasons, not because patients become ineligible. These cutoffs, according to the Washington Post July 28, are due to “renewal notices not arriving at the right addresses, beneficiaries not understanding the notices, or an assortment of state agencies’ mistakes and logjams.” And states quite obstinately keep people off Medicaid, even if they were dropped for one of these flimsy “procedural” reasons. Arkansas, the new Mecca for child labor, is one of the worst, while Texas, of course, followed by Florida, natch, has severed the most people, hundreds of thousands.

Arkansas GOP governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of the nation’s leading far-right fanatics when it comes to pitching her constituents back into deliquescent, early 19^th century social conditions, said in a May Wall Street Journal op-ed, “I’m proud Arkansas is leading the nation in getting back to normal.” Normal being booted off life-saving medical care. “It’s time to get [Arkansas residents] off the path of dependency.” The brave new world of astronomical premiums and high-priced medicines on Obamacare, or simply no care at all, awaits!

“Trevor Hawkins, an attorney with Legal Aid of Arkansas, said some people have been told their Medicaid cases were closed at their own request – when that was not true,” the Post reported. Also, children lose coverage when their parents do, even though they still qualify! But the state has a handy dandy excuse: Some people, according to the Arkansas human services department spokesman “have chosen not to return the renewal forms, aware that they are no longer eligible.”

This is probably hokum. But it is to be expected from a Republican party with a long history of hostility to Medicaid and an open wish to bury it. Remember, years ago when the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults at 138 percent of the poverty level, ten states refused the expansion. They are: Wisconsin, Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. North Carolina adopted but did not implement the expansion. Those are mostly red states, whose governments basically said they’d rather their poor residents skipped seeing a doctor than accept federal funds for a program they oppose ideologically and slam around enthusiastically as a political punching bag.

So the smart money is on these eleven states contributing inordinately to the U.S.’s dismal longevity and infant mortality stats. When even a nation like Cuba, impoverished by Washington’s illegal, 60-year blockade, beats the U.S. in these two categories, you know something stinks. That something is the lack of a decent public health system.

American private equity-owned, for-profit medicine is a disgrace. People die of cancer every day because they cannot afford chemo. The number of medically-caused bankruptcies shot through the roof decades ago and now is unrivalled anywhere else on the planet. Insulin, a simple, life-saving drug whose discoverer tried to make it cheap, costs so much that diabetics routinely purchase it in Canada. Thank God for other countries. If American patients couldn’t shop online abroad, they’d be dropping like flies. And they will be, if our malevolently creative pharmaceutical companies ever manage to block this avenue of rescue. Given how inventive they’ve been at perverting Medicare, it surely is only a matter of time before pharma finds a way to tighten that noose, too.

How badly has decaying capitalism destroyed our health? According to the KFF Health System Tracker, “The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries, while it far outspends its peers on health care.” Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind that in Germany, the U.K., Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Japan and Switzerland. To say nothing of U.S. life expectancy dipping behind China, Lebanon, the Czech Republic and Cuba.

In infant mortality, the U.S. does even worse. It ranked 33 out of 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in 2019 – before the pandemic. And we all know how abysmally the U.S. did during the covid years (which some might note are not over) – over 1.1 million dead, proportionally worse than any other country, rich or poor. That’s because our dysfunctional public health system and our corporate-owned government were uninterested in stopping the virus with any sustained, coherent medical strategy, while the few lockdowns we did have nearly sparked a far-right revolt.

That doesn’t even count the 16.3 million working age Americans who cope with long covid, their health compromised, and as for their longevity – who knows? They’ll probably join the statistics of the multitudes of Americans who die prematurely, while nincompoop right-wingers and our corporate overlords will no doubt rant against any public health moves to assist them, as part of a commie plot to steal our freedoms, since public health arrangements put, uh, health first. So there will be none. Because we are ruled by cruel, greedy people who also happen to be nitwits. If you doubt that assessment, just look at their conduct of our foreign policy.

So yes, in America, along with the freedom to freeze to death sleeping under an overpass in winter or the freedom to drop dead of heat stroke driving an un-air-conditioned UPS truck in summer for a living, the freedom to work 80 hours a week and still not afford an apartment or the freedom to skip meals because you can’s snag enough work for your food stamps, we also have the freedom to die of treatable diseases because we can’t pay. The few best efforts to alter that amoral calculus of our corporate rulers are Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and they remain all-season targets of far-right demagogues. And now with the pandemic supposedly over, as the few socially and morally responsible safeguards against it are removed, we will see again that unfailing measure of unfettered monopolistic capitalist success – an uptick in the death rate.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

Koga Harue (Japan), Umi (‘The Sea’), 1929.

On 7 October 2022, the United States government implemented export controls in an effort to hinder the development of China’s semiconductor industry. An expert on the subject told the Financial Times, ‘The whole point of the policy is to kneecap China’s AI [Artificial Intelligence] and HPC [High Performance Computing] efforts’. The next day, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said:

In order to maintain its sci-tech hegemony, the US has been abusing export control measures to wantonly block and hobble Chinese enterprises. Such practice runs counter to the principle of fair competition and international trade rules. It will not only harm Chinese companies’ legitimate rights and interests but also hurt the interests of US companies. It will hinder international sci-tech exchange and trade cooperation and deal a blow to global industrial and supply chains and world economic recovery. By politicising tech and trade issues and using them as a tool and weapon, the US cannot hold back China’s development but will only hurt and isolate itself when its action backfires.

As part of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research’s collaboration with No Cold War, we studied the implications of these export controls with a focus on semiconductors. Briefing no. 7 teaches us about the vitality of semiconductors and why their use in the New Cold War will not bear the fruits anticipated by Washington.

On 8 April, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul was asked to explain ‘why Americans… should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan’. His answer was telling: ‘TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] manufactures 90% of the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips’. The interviewer noted that McCaul’s reasoning ‘sounds like the case that [was] made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s of why America was spending so much money and military resources in the Middle East [when] oil was so important for the economy’ and then asked whether semiconductor chips are ‘the 21st century version’ of oil – that is, a key driver of US foreign policy towards China.

Semiconductor chips are the building blocks of the world’s most advanced technologies (such as artificial intelligence, 5G telecommunications, and supercomputing) as well as all modern electronics. Without them, the computers, phones, cars, and devices that are essential to our everyday lives would cease to function. They are typically produced by using ultraviolet light to etch microscopic circuit patterns onto thin layers of silicon, packing billions of electrical switches called transistors onto a single fingernail-sized wafer. This technology advances through a relentless process of miniaturisation: the smaller the distance between transistors, the greater the density of transistors that can be packed onto a chip and the more computing power that can be embedded in each chip and in each facet of modern life. Today, the most advanced chips are produced with a three-nanometre (nm) process (for reference, a sheet of paper is roughly 100,000-nm thick).

Charles Sheeler (United States), Classic Landscape, 1931.

The Semiconductor Supply Chain

The commercial semiconductor industry was developed in Silicon Valley, California in the late 1950s, dominated by the United States in all aspects, from research and design to manufacture and sales. From the outset, this industry held geopolitical significance, with early manufacturers selling upwards of 95% of their chips to the Pentagon or the aerospace sector. Over the subsequent decades, the US selectively offshored most of its chip manufacturing to its East Asian allies, first to Japan, then to South Korea and Taiwan. This allowed the US to reduce its capital and labour costs and stimulate the industrial development of its allies while continuing to dominate the supply chain.

Today, US firms maintain a commanding presence in chip design (e.g., Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA) and fabrication equipment (e.g., Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA). Taiwan’s TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer or foundry, accounting for an overwhelming 56% share of the global market and over 90% of advanced chip manufacturing in 2022, followed by South Korea’s Samsung, which holds a 15% share of the global market. In addition, the Dutch firm ASML is a critical player, holding a monopoly on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines needed to produce the most advanced chips below 7-nm.

The largest part of the semiconductor supply chain that lies outside of the control of the US and its allies is in China, which has developed into the world’s electronics manufacturing hub and a major technological power over the past four decades. China’s share of global chip manufacturing capacity has risen from zero in 1990 to roughly 15% in 2020. Yet, despite its sizeable developmental advances, China’s chip production capabilities still lag behind, relying on imports for the most advanced chips (in 2020, China imported $378 billion worth of semiconductors, 18% of its total imports). Meanwhile, China’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC, only has a 5% share of the global market, paling in comparison to TSMC.

Giorgio de Chirico (Italy), Ettore e Andromaca (‘Hector and Andromache’), 1955–56.

The US Campaign against China

In recent years, the US has been waging an aggressive campaign to arrest China’s technological development, which it views as a serious threat to its dominance. In the words of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Washington’s goal is to ‘maintain as large of a lead as possible’. To this end, the US has identified China’s semiconductor production capabilities as an important weakness and is trying to block the country’s access to advanced chips and chip-making technology. Under the Trump and Biden administrations, the US has placed hundreds of Chinese companies on trade and investment blacklists, including the country’s leading semiconductor manufacturer SMIC and tech giant Huawei. These restrictions have banned any company in the world that uses US products – effectively every chip designer and manufacturer – from doing business with Chinese tech firms.

The US has also pressured governments and firms around the world to impose similar restrictions. Since 2018, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have joined the US in banning Huawei from their 5G telecommunications networks while a number of European countries have implemented partial bans or restrictions. Importantly, in 2019, after more than a year of intense US lobbying, the Dutch government blocked the key firm ASML, which builds and supplies the most advanced chip-making machinery to the semiconductor industry, from exporting its equipment to China.

These policies do not only target firms; they also have a direct impact on an individual level. In October 2022, the Biden administration restricted ‘US persons’ – including citizens, residents, and green-card holders – from working for Chinese chip firms, forcing many to choose between their immigration status and their jobs. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a leading Washington, DC think tank, characterised US policy as ‘actively strangling large segments of the Chinese technology industry – strangling with an intent to kill’ (our emphasis).

Alongside its containment measures against China, the US has ramped up efforts to boost its domestic chip-making capacity. The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law in August 2022, provides $280 billion in funding to boost the domestic US semiconductor industry and reshore production from East Asia. Washington views Taiwan’s role as the manufacturing hub of the semiconductor industry as a strategic vulnerability given its proximity to mainland China and is inducing TSMC to relocate production to Phoenix, Arizona. This pressure, in turn, is generating its own frictions in the US-Taiwan relationship.

However, US efforts are not infallible. Although China has suffered serious setbacks, it has intensified efforts to promote its domestic capacity, and there are signs of progress despite the obstacles imposed by the US. For example, in 2022, China’s SMIC reportedly achieved a significant technological breakthrough, making the leap from 14-nm to 7-nm semiconductor chips, which is on par with the global leaders Intel, TSMC, and Samsung.

Lu Yang (China), Delusional World – Bardo #1, 2021.

A Matter of Global Importance

It is important to note that the US is not only targeting China in this conflict: Washington fears that China’s technological development will lead, through trade and investment, to the dispersal of advanced technologies more broadly throughout the world, namely, to states in the Global South that the US sees as a threat. This would be a significant blow to the US’s power over these countries. In 2020, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee decried that China was facilitating ‘digital authoritarianism’ because it has ‘been willing to go into smaller, under-served markets’ and ‘offer more cost-effective equipment than Western companies’, pointing to countries under US sanctions such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe as examples. To combat ties between Chinese tech firms and sanctioned countries, the US has taken severe legal action, fining the Chinese corporation ZTE $1.2 billion in 2017 for violating US sanctions against Iran and North Korea. The US also collaborated with Canada to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 on charges of circumventing US sanctions against Iran.

Unsurprisingly, while the US has been able to consolidate support for its agenda amongst a number of its Western allies, its efforts have failed across the Global South. It is in the interest of developing countries for such advanced technologies to be dispersed as widely as possible – not to be controlled by a select few states.

Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia), The End of the Beginning, 1972–73.

If you are reading this newsletter on your smartphone, then you should know that this tiny instrument has billions of miniscule transistors that are invisible to the human eye. The scale of the developments in digital technology is staggering. Earlier conflicts took place over energy and food, but now this conflict has heated up over – amongst other matters – the resources of our digital world. This technology can be used to solve so many of our dilemmas, and yet, here we are, at the precipice of greater conflict to benefit the few over the needs of the many.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/04/28/you-are-reading-this-thanks-to-semiconductors/feed/ 0 391171 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/nguyen-lan-thang-04132023152738.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/nguyen-lan-thang-04132023152738.html#respond Thu, 13 Apr 2023 19:34:00 +0000 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/nguyen-lan-thang-04132023152738.html The wife of a Vietnamese political activist and blogger convicted of spreading "anti-state propagand"a issued a letter on Thursday expressing disagreement with the verdict and thanking supporters and attorneys who defended her husband.

The Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Nguyen Lan Thang, a long-time contributor of blog posts on politics and society to Radio Free Asia’s Vietnamese service, to six years in prison and two years of probation. 

Authorities arrested him in July 2022 based on allegations that he posted videos on Facebook and YouTube that were said to “oppose” the Vietnamese Communist Party.

He is one of four jailed Radio Free Asia contributors in Vietnam. 

“Although we disagree (if not oppose) with the trial and the verdict, our hearts feel warm because humanity is still alive,” wrote Thang’s wife Le Thi Bich Vuong.

“Our family would like to thank everyone for their posts, shares, support, and encouraging smiles toward us,” her letter said.

Vuong went on to say that her family still believes that Thang is “a patriot who has never done anything wrong with the country and his conscience.”

“We believe in what is right and that true progress will eventually triumph,” she wrote.

Thang’s conviction is the latest of a string of judgments against dissidents under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, frequently used by authorities to restrict freedom of expression and opinions deemed critical of the regime.

‘Gross miscarriage of justice’

Various human rights and other groups weighed in on the verdict, with the International Commission of Jurists calling it a “gross miscarriage of justice which should be immediately quashed.”

“The prosecution and conviction is not only a miscarriage of justice against an individual, but yet another attack on an already battered rule of law in Vietnam,” Ian Seiderman, the organization’s legal and policy director said in a statement. 

“The ongoing and heightened crackdown has targeted civil society activists, lawyers, journalists, political commentators and human rights defenders for engaging in activities that are protected under human rights law,” he said.

London-based Amnesty International tweeted that Thang’s trial had been “riddled with flaws.” 

“The sentence is nothing more than an attempt to silence him and others bravely documenting human rights abuses in the country,” the organization said.

RFA President Bay Fang said the conviction was “a miscarriage of justice and an assault on free expression in Vietnam” and called on authorities to immediate release Thang and drop the charges against him.

“The outrageous harassment he has endured and his sentencing to six years in prison demonstrate the extent to which Vietnamese authorities will go to silence independent journalists and voices,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

Squelching free speech

Amanda Bennett, head of the United States Agency for Global Media, which comprises six organizations including RFA, said Thang’s sentencing struck another blow against free speech and freedom of the press in Vietnam.  

“For nearly a decade, Nguyen Lan Thang shared timely and prescient perspectives on freedom, democracy, and human rights with the Vietnamese audience of Radio Free Asia,” she said in a statement issued Thursday. “I join the chorus of international voices calling on the government of Vietnam to drop all charges and immediately release Nguyen Lan Thang.”

Thang’s conviction came two days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to visit Hanoi to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership. 

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Right Watch said Blinken should take the opportunity to urge the Vietnamese government to end its systemic abuse of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and release the more than 160 political prisoners, including Thang, imprisoned for exercising their rights.

“The Vietnamese government’s human rights record has deteriorated in recent years, with almost all prominent bloggers, citizen journalists, and rights activists arrested and imprisoned for expressing views the authorities did not agree with,” Robertson said in a statement.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Roseanne Gerin for RFA.

]]> https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/nguyen-lan-thang-04132023152738.html/feed/ 0 387500 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/29/flood-hit-mangere-family-thanks-community-support-in-disaster/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/29/flood-hit-mangere-family-thanks-community-support-in-disaster/#respond Sun, 29 Jan 2023 05:30:20 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=83755 By Barbara Dreaver, 1News Pacific correspondent

The Moungavalu family in Aotearoa New Zealand are grateful to be alive.

Their Māngere home in Auckland, along with others in their street, was hit hard by flooding with chest-deep water sweeping down the road.

Mohe Mougavalu says the water went down their no exit street but because there was no outflow at the other end, it came back twofold on the homes.

• READ MORE: Auckland floods a future sign – city needs stormwater systems fit for climate change
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• With seas rising and storms surging, who will pay for New Zealand’s most vulnerable coastal properties?
• GALLERY: Massive volunteer effort in tackling Auckland’s floods
• Other Asia Pacific Report coverage of Auckland’s flooding
• Follow RNZ live news updates

“We weren’t going to leave the house but the only way to survive is to get out. It’s really testing, especially me deciding the fate of our family,” he said.

“We actually have to hold on to the fence and make our way up the street and get out.”

The family returned at 6am today to start cleaning and are devastated at the level of damage. They’ve lost nearly everything they own.

Community advocate Dave Letele and his community group BBM were first on the scene to offer help.

Arranging replacements
Through his contacts, he is arranging for furniture and damaged appliances to be replaced. He has also delivered food parcels and rugs to where the family is sheltering with one of their aunts.

Barbara Dreaver’s report on the Moungavalu family.     Video: 1News

It’s much appreciated as there are 19 people there.

This isn’t an isolated case — it’s unknown how many homes are affected in South Auckland but it’s believed to be widespread.

Letele says that’s the issue.

“It’s the people who are already struggling – that’s the issue here. The areas that are hit, these people are already struggling.”

The BBM team has sprung into action and a call for volunteers and donations has brought a steady stream of people wanting to help.

Te Aroha Isaia is one of them. She and her family have brought baby items, clothes and food.

‘Stand up and deliver’
“I like to think if we were in need people like ourselves, if they have something to give them, why not?”

Letele says the support from the community wanting to help is incredible.

“We do what the community does best and we stand up and deliver in times of need,” he said.

Just as well, as everybody 1News spoke to felt South Auckland had been left to fend for itself.

Tuala Tagaloa Tusani, chairperson of charity group ASA Foundation says it’s disgraceful that little official focus was put on the area.

“It’s bloody late. The community again is trying to find solutions to the problems.”

The ASA Foundation and Graeme Avenue Pharmacy teamed up to deliver prescribed medication free of charge to those who needed it today.

Tusani says he is concerned about how struggling families will be able to cope with replacing flood-damaged items and repairs on homes.

“School is supposed to start next week so a lot of our money has already been put into school fees,” he said.

There’s no doubt families like the Moungavalus have taken a financial hit, but they say at least they can rebuild together as a family.

Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/29/flood-hit-mangere-family-thanks-community-support-in-disaster/feed/ 0 368151 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/12/23/thousands-to-miss-christmas-thanks-to-covid-19-how-to-avoid-making-it-worse/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/12/23/thousands-to-miss-christmas-thanks-to-covid-19-how-to-avoid-making-it-worse/#respond Fri, 23 Dec 2022 22:04:22 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=82195

RNZ News

Thousands of people will be cancelling their Christmas Day plans thanks to the invisible grinch, covid-19.

Leading epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker estimates 85,000 people will be in isolation by then.

He says gathering outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces is key to limiting the Christmas spread of covid — and testing beforehand.

• READ MORE: Covid-19: Jacinda Ardern defends settings amid wave of reported cases

“No-one will thank you for turning up and infecting other people, particularly if there are vulnerable people there. This is a time to be responsible and test if you have got symptoms, and then act accordingly.”

Crunching the numbers, Professor Baker said we could expect about 12,000 new infections on Christmas Day, based on the daily average of reported cases, plus the same number again of unreported ones.

Covid Modelling Aotearoa programme co-leader Dion O’Neale agreed.

“We’re sitting at the peak of a relatively decent-sized wave at the moment, so definitely lots of people will end up missing Christmas because they’re a confirmed case and will have to isolate.”

He expected reported case numbers to decrease, but reminded people not to rely on that as a signal the wave is over.

“They just don’t report a case when they’re having a fun time, that’s almost certainly happened this week with schools knocking off and a bunch of people leaving work.”

‘We have had to actually cancel Christmas’
One Auckland man, who wished to remain anonymous, said Covid had slipped through the chimney at his house – he had two family members who tested positive this week.

“Sadly we have had to actually cancel Christmas. We had been really looking forward to getting together with my sister and her kids for a big family get-together… and I had to phone her yesterday and say, ‘Look, I’m really sorry we can’t do it, it’s all off’.”

They would take Christmas Day as it came and delay their family gathering.

“We’re just going to have to try and make it as nice as we possibly can, depending how people are feeling. It could be that some people are feeling unwell.”

Auckland woman Melanie Bruges will get out of isolation in time to celebrate Christmas Day with family.

“We’re having family over on Christmas Day on Sunday, so I’m going to keep a really low-profile until then. We’ll probably test on Christmas Day before everybody comes over.”

If her husband or their seven-year-old tested positive, they would postpone.

“We’ve got five grandparents around for Christmas Day and we wouldn’t want them to be exposed to anything just for the sake of a meal. We can always put it off.”

Free biscuit not worth the risk
For the thousands who were flying to their Christmas Day destination, O’Neale said it paid to be cautious and mask-up.

“Is it really diminishing your travel experience if you don’t get your free glass of water and a dry biscuit on the plane? Would you rather have a dry biscuit or covid?”

He and Professor Baker did not want the grinch to steal Christmas.

“It’s absolutely essential for your health, wellbeing and enjoyment of life to get out and reconnect with your family and friends and have an enjoyable summer, that is so important,” Professor Baker said.

“Covid should not get in your way at all, and it’s a matter of making small changes in how you do things just to make it a lot safer for everyone.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/12/23/thousands-to-miss-christmas-thanks-to-covid-19-how-to-avoid-making-it-worse/feed/ 0 360036 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/24/giving-thanks-for-social-security/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/24/giving-thanks-for-social-security/#respond Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:28:52 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/node/341267

Over its more than 87 years, Social Security has given Americans a lot to be thankful for. 

Together, through our Social Security system, we protect ourselves, our families, and our communities against the devastating loss of wages in the event of retirement, disability, or death.

Social Security represents the best of American values, including reward for hard work, sturdy self-reliance, and shared risks.

Over 65 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, which lift 22.5 million people—including more than a million children—out of poverty every year and lessen the depth of poverty of millions more. In addition to Social Security's retirement benefits, the program benefits over nine million people with disabilities and four million children directly, with their own benefits that have been earned by themselves or working parents. Moreover, these benefits, paid like clockwork every month, are overwhelmingly spent in the local community, creating economic activity and, along with it, jobs and prosperity.

Social Security represents the best of American values, including reward for hard work, sturdy self-reliance, and shared risks. It is efficient, universal, fair, portable, and secure. Nearly every American is either a current Social Security beneficiary, or is likely to benefit in the future.

Virtually everyone has a loved one who receives Social Security. And everyone benefits by living in a society with past leaders who had the foresight to ensure that virtually everyone has some measure of basic economic security.

This Thanksgiving, families across the country appreciate our Social Security system. If they don't give express thanks, it is because it may not come to mind, for good reason. Social Security is always there, quietly in the background, doing what it was created to do: Protecting us if the unfortunate strikes us in the form of disability or death leaving dependents or if the fortunate occurs, in the form of long life.

In addition, those of us working to protect and expand Social Security have another reason to feel thankful and breathe a sigh of relief: Republicans did far worse than expected in the midterm elections, which decreases the threat that they pose to our Social Security system. .

In the months leading up to the election, Republican politicians barely bothered to hide their deep desire to cut, or even dismantle, Social Security's earned benefits. They mouthed their usual platitudes about "saving" Social Security, but released plans to do exactly the opposite.

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) released a plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the Congressional chopping block every five years. Not to be outdone, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) announced his support for turning Social Security and Medicare into "discretionary spending" meaning that they would lose their ironclad guarantee. Instead, they would be subjected to Congressional negotiations, likely to result in benefit cuts (or at best, delay benefits) every single year. Millions of Social Security beneficiaries who rely on Social Security would be harmed. They would certainly be surprised to hear that their earned benefits are "discretionary!"

The Republican Study Committee, a group that counts about 75 percent of House Republicans as members, was even more explicit about the party's intentions. Instead of hiding behind process and complicated concepts like discretionary spending and sunsetting of programs, as Scott and Johnson did, the RSC released a detailed plan to cut Social Security in multiple ways: Raising the retirement age to 70 (a 21 percent benefit cut), slashing middle class benefits, and handing billions of dollars of Social Security's revenue over to Wall Street and private insurance corporations.

Thankfully, Democrats fought back. Social Security was a major focus in the weeks leading up to the midterms. Democrats blanketed the country with ads highlighting the Republican plans to cut Social Security. President Joe Biden slammed the Scott and Johnson plans at every possible opportunity. Democratic candidates in competitive races, including Pennsylvania Senator-elect John Fetterman, promised to protect and expand Social Security's earned benefits.

Thankfully, voters listened, and delivered a resounding rebuke to the Republicans on election day. The "red wave" anticipated by political pundits turned into a trickle, with Democrats keeping control of the Senate and Republicans getting a far narrower majority than expected in the House.

Senator Johnson won re-election by only a single percentage point, by far his most competitive race. Fetterman won his race, while enemies of Social Security like Arizona's Blake Masters and New Hampshire's Don Bolduc lost.

Data shows that Americans voted with Social Security in mind. Navigator Research found that Social Security was one of the top three issues for swing voters, behind only inflation and abortion. (Both of these issues received far more media attention in the months leading up to the election. In fact, most media outlets failed to even report clearly about the threat to our earned benefits.) Data for Progress found that voters were "incredibly averse to Republican efforts to cut or slash programs like Social Security and Medicare."

We should all be thankful that, as polarized as we are over many issues, the American people are united in our support for Social Security and Medicare. Voters have made it clear, yet again, that politicians who try to cut Social Security and Medicare will pay the price at the voting booth.

But there's still more to do to protect our earned benefits.

Republicans have repeatedly threatened to take the must-pass debt limit hostage, refusing to raise it unless Democrats agree to cut Social Security and Medicare. In other words, presumptive Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and his band of budgetary arsonists want to cut earned benefits so badly they're willing to risk an economic catastrophe to make it happen.

Democrats can stop this crisis before it happens by removing the hostage from danger now—raising the debt ceiling in the final session of this year's Congress, before Republicans take control of the House. Every political leader who cares about Social Security's future must make this their top priority.

That includes President Joe Biden. At a press conference the day after the election, Biden stated: "Under no circumstances will I…cut or make fundamental changes in Social Security and Medicare. That's not on the table. I will not do that."

The President's firm promise to protect Social Security and Medicare is something we can all be thankful for—particularly if he keeps that promise by making sure Congressional Democrats raise the debt limit before the end of the year.

That will clear the way for Democrats to continue to push to expand Social Security and Medicare, while requiring the wealthiest to begin to pay their fair share. If Democrats hold firm and continue to fight for protecting and expanding our earned benefits, we will have even more to be thankful for next Thanksgiving.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Nancy J. Altman.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/24/giving-thanks-for-social-security/feed/ 0 353244 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/16/polish-key-workers-feel-unwelcome-in-the-uk-thanks-to-brexit-plus-covid/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/16/polish-key-workers-feel-unwelcome-in-the-uk-thanks-to-brexit-plus-covid/#respond Wed, 16 Nov 2022 06:31:07 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/podcasts/podcast-borders-belonging/brexit-covid-polish-key-worker-migrant-uk/ Our research revealed how Brexit and COVID sharpened imagined borders within workplaces

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Kasia Narkowicz, Aneta Piekut.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/16/polish-key-workers-feel-unwelcome-in-the-uk-thanks-to-brexit-plus-covid/feed/ 0 351190 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/23/thanks-to-manchin-iras-methane-fee-on-big-oil-is-riddled-with-massive-holes/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/23/thanks-to-manchin-iras-methane-fee-on-big-oil-is-riddled-with-massive-holes/#respond Tue, 23 Aug 2022 13:35:01 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/node/339219

The newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act contains the world's first-ever fee on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas believed to be responsible for roughly 30% of global temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution.

But analysts and climate advocates fear that the fee, which is aimed at incentivizing U.S. fossil fuel companies to stop deliberately spewing the gas into the atmosphere, will have a muted impact on rapidly rising methane emissions given that 60% of the oil and gas industry is exempt from the penalty.

"Many firms already undercount their emissions to greenwash their operations; the fee gives them another reason to fudge numbers."

Reuters reported earlier this month that thanks to carveouts won by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—the fossil fuel industry's top ally in the Senate Democratic caucus and the chamber's leading recipient of oil and gas donations—the fee "only applies to companies that emit 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year," including "a small number of the largest oil companies and independent producers."

"In another concession made to Manchin, oil and gas companies that comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's forthcoming methane rules due later this year would also be exempted from the fee. The rules require companies to upgrade equipment, monitor leaks, and clean them up," the outlet noted. "The bill would also exempt distribution facilities that bring natural gas to homes and businesses, offer exemptions to some pipelines and gathering facilities that sell volumes of gas below a certain threshold, and give industry nearly $1.5 billion in financial incentives to clean up their methane."

Responding to the slew of exemptions in the law, Peter Hart of Food and Water Watch tweeted that "a certain type of climate wonk gets really excited about things like a 'methane fee.'"

"The one in the IRA was weakened so that it applies to basically no one," he observed.

E&E News pointed specifically to Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass facility, the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the U.S. by volume, as an example of the IRA's shortcomings on methane.

"Sabine Pass reported methane emissions equivalent of nearly 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2020," E&E News noted. "At first glance, the Southwestern Louisiana terminal would appear to be subject to the fee, which would only apply to facilities with annual emissions in excess of 25,000 tons."

"But a second provision could potentially allow the Sabine Pass to avoid paying a penalty," the publication added. "Only LNG facilities with a leakage rate in excess of .05 percent of total gas sales are subject to the fee."

Methane is more than 80 times more potent at heating the planet than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and experts have characterized reining in emissions of the gas as "the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040."

But it's an opportunity that world leaders, particularly those of the rich nations most responsible for the climate crisis, have yet to seize. According to figures released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in April, 2021 saw a record annual increase in atmospheric methane levels—beating the previous record set just a year earlier.

"Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said at the time. "We can no longer afford to delay urgent and effective action needed to address the cause of the problem—greenhouse gas pollution."

Because of its severe limitations, the IRA's methane fee is unlikely to put a serious dent in U.S. methane emissions, which are fueled primarily by pipelines and other oil and gas industry operations.

The fee begins in 2024 at $900 per metric ton of methane and rises to $1,500 by 2026.

Writing for The American Prospect last week, Robert Hitt noted that the fee "only covers 40% of the methane emissions produced by the oil and gas industry, and the companies that are covered report their own emissions."

"Many firms already undercount their emissions to greenwash their operations; the fee gives them another reason to fudge numbers," Hitt warned.

Hitt went on to emphasize that "an IRA provision requiring revision of EPA emission reporting requirements, and new EPA rules already in the works, may be able to address these shortcomings to give the fee real teeth."

"But as things stand, many smaller players in the oil and gas industry won't have to pay any excess methane fee," Hitt wrote. "It will only apply to facilities that self-report more than the equivalent of 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, leaving the majority of methane emissions untouched."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/23/thanks-to-manchin-iras-methane-fee-on-big-oil-is-riddled-with-massive-holes/feed/ 0 325796 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/03/thanks-bill/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/03/thanks-bill/#respond Wed, 03 Aug 2022 05:52:52 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=251253

Photograph Source: John G. Zimmerman for Sports Illustrated – Public Domain

Celtics great and civil rights activist Bill Russell died on July 31 at the age of 88.

Boston is now known as the City of Champions because of the success of its professional sports franchises over the last few decades. But when I moved to a Boston neighborhood (Southie) as a kid in the early 60s from suburban Kansas City, it was a pathetic little town of losers. The Bruins had languished at or near last place for a loooong time, albeit there were only the original 6 teams at the time. The Boston Patriots sucked, and had trouble even finding a stadium they could call home, from season, renting out the fields of universities — Harvard, BC, BU, any one of which could have beat the “sissies” in a game, we reckoned — or fucking up the turf in vain at Fenway Park so badly that it resembled the stockyard outside the abattoir in nearby Brighton. You felt for the groundskeeper.

And the Red Sox, who I would listen to on the radio, could unman you, even as a boy, with their endless string of heartbreaking losses –early, late, and often — that had you wishing that relief pitcher Dick “The Monster” Radatz would just wind up and clock someone with an intimate chin music fastball (a repeated wish that might have led to local hero Tony Conigliaro’s karmic beaning), they were so laughably bad. Back then, many of us were a little bit like Sox star Jimmy Piersall, who pulled a nutty with a bat one season, threatening teammates, and was a real lip-doodler who could have been the straitjacketed mascot of the team, given their performance on the field.

But the Celtics! Early on they were mostly white, like the NBA itself, and just before I arrived in Beantown, were also chumps not champs, although they featured the flashy guard Bob “Cooz” Cousy and, for a flashpoint moment, actor Chuck Connors, who went on to star in the hit TV series The Rifleman, and who even got political, it seems, late in his career, fictionally admitting to American atrocities from gunships in foreign lands almost 40 years before Wikileaks released the very real “Collateral Damage.” The Celtics were only 13 years old in 1959 and, according to basketball chronicler John Taylor, “the team was a purely a commercial afterthought in a sport without strong roots in the city’s culture, and for much of the fifties, attendance at its games reflected this.” Boston Garden owner Walt Brown just wanted to fill some seats and make a buck on dates when the Bruins weren’t in town.

But then along came Red Auerbach, who made the fateful trade for Tommy Heinsohn, K.C. Jones and Bill Russell, and the Celtics became extraordinary winners almost overnight. By the time I moved to Boston, they were already in the fifth year of their championship dynasty run from 1956, the year I was born, to 1969, winning the NBA title 11 out of 13 years. And Bill Russell was the primary reason. He turned the team into what it would later regard as its trademark — a defensive-minded squad that held opponents down. Auerbach even traded for the center because of his defensive prowess, a counterintuitive move at the time. And Russell’s play earned him gushing praise from other ballers. As Sporting News notes,

Standing at 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) tall, with a 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) arm span, his shot-blocking and man-to-man defense were major reasons for the Celtics’ dominance during his career. Russell was equally notable for his rebounding abilities, and he led the NBA in rebounds four times, had a dozen consecutive seasons of 1,000 or more rebounds, and remains second all time in both total rebounds and rebounds per game. He is one of just two NBA players (the other being prominent rival Wilt Chamberlain) to have grabbed more than 50 rebounds in a game. [Wiki]

These are staggering stats. And Russell often saved his best play for his monster rival Wilt Chamberlain, who, almost at times unstoppable, once scored 100 points in a game. According to a Chicago Tribune comparison,

According to the numbers, Chamberlain won far more individual battles against Russell than he lost. But Russell usually won the war. His Celtics were 87-60 against Chamberlain`s teams. And Russell won those 11 rings to Chamberlain`s two.

I saw them play against each other on TV only a few times. They were fierce competitors and went at each other with passion, including a bench-clearing brawl between them in the 1966 Eastern Conference.

But the real enemy Bill Russell had all his life was Racism. He shared that much with Wilt the Stilt. In a scene Russell never forgot, he was refused hotel rooms while traveling with his NBA teammate — first in Dallas, where Russell spat on the hotel proprietor after the snub, and then in segregated North Carolina. As John Taylor puts it in The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball (2005),

It enraged Russell to think that he was living in a society that simultaneously celebrated his athletic accomplishments and considered him inferior because of race, to realize that not only did a large portion of the population hate him for his skin color but that this hatred inescapably seeped into his own view of himself.

Russell wrote later in his memoir, Go Up for Glory, of the evil he faced as a man off the court:

It stood out, harsh and unyielding, a wall which understanding still cannot penetrate.

You are a Negro. You are less.

It covered every area. A living, smarting, hurting, smelling, greasy substance which covered you. A morass to fight from.

This double-consciousness — champion and scum — later radicalized Russell and he briefly went by the name Felton X and was one of the first to show public support for Muhammad Ali, then on the ropes for his refusal to be drafted to fight the “yellow man.”

Boston was an especially harsh reality for Russell, with its contradictions. The Celtics were green and Irish and their logo was a fighting leprechaun and suited the poor white neighborhoods of Boston, particularly Southie and C-town, who hated “blue blood” attitudes and economic divisions, and who wore Bobby Sands t-shirts and “supported” the plight of the pre-U2 northern Irish in their battles to oust the British from Londonderry. Unfortunately for the legacy of that Noble Cause (fuck Cromwell!), these same liberating neighborhoods were teeming with yahoos who also hated “niggahs” as much as, if not more, than they hated the far-flung British. And when bussing came to desegregate schools, these Green activists threw red bricks at yellow buses full of Black kids like the IRA threw sticks of dynamite at the marching Orangemen.

Probably after Russell’s support of Ali’s plight and subsequent stripping of his championship, the FBI opened a file (the first step in a person of interest dossier) on the Big Guy. In the file it was observed by one of Hoover’s henchmen, who had blithely invited MLK to commit suicide or they’d tell everybody he’d had dreams with other women, that Russell was “an arrogant Negro who won’t sign autographs for white children.” Locals began to resent his apparent aloofness and seeming uppitiness, and some regarded him as a “reverse-racist.” This decrepit attitude reached its full flower when, while out of town from his home in Reading, some rascals broke into his home and raped it, writing “nigga’ on the walls, breaking his trophies, ransacking, and, the poup de grace, dropping a deuce on his bed, under the covers, for the surprise effect. (Can Trump account for his whereabouts at this time?) This incident and others are summed up in a tweet by Russell’s daughter shortly after his death.

Russell went through some hard yakka in Boston and was hard done by, I reckon. The Boston sportswriters helped shape the perception of Russell’s character. (Imagine being profiled by someone like that halfwit and full-time sot Dan Shaughnessy?) But as he said in Taylor’s book, frankly, “You owe the public the same it owes you, nothing! I refuse to smile and be nice to the kiddies.” As teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, Tommy Heinsohn, put it years later, Russell brought Boston 11 championships in 13 years and when Boston added a third tunnel under the harbor they named it the Ted Williams tunnel rather than the Bill Russell tunnel. Just as well, probably, as there was a fatal partial collapse of the tunnel’s ceiling, and had they named it after Russell locals would have had one more opportunity to irrationally hate on the Big Guy. Hell, he retired as a player in 1969 and Boston didn’t get around to putting up a statue until 2013 outside City Hall, site of the flag-stabbing of a Black man in 1977.

Part of the paradox of Russell’s contentious dealings with the public and press in Boston was the fact that Coach Red Auerbach and the Celtics organization were racially progressive at time when the nation was still resisting Civil Rights legislation that would guarantee Black equal opportunity — and voting rights. In a later interview, Russell himself acknowledged the Celtic difference — for himself and the league:

The Celtics were the first [NBA basketball] team to draft a black player, period: … [a] guy named Chuck Cooper from Duquesne … The first team to start five black players was the Boston Celtics … The first [NBA organization] to hire a black [head] coach was the Boston Celtics … and [they’ve] had at least five [black head-coaches] over the years.

In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Russell the nations’ highest civilian honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — citing his professional success and civil rights work. Just five years ago, Bill Russell, at the age of 83, showed his support for NFL players who were then “taking a knee” during the national anthem, by doing so himself, wearing his Medal of Freedom.

Bill Russell was a champion of champions, a Man among men, and when cops were taking knees on necks to celebrate their fascism and give us a picture of what plantation life must have been like, Russell took a knee for freedom and dignity.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Kendall Hawkins.